Ten questions for VP Joe Biden

Tomorrow night the vice presidential nominees will face off. In the case of Vice President Joe Biden, a well-known commodity to the voters, it is a time to ask some questions about the last four years. Here are my top 10:

1. Was it a mistake not to back Iran’s Green Revolution?

2. Was it a mistake to make settlements the central issue in the “peace process”?

3. Where in the world are we more influential than we were four years ago?

4. Why did President Obama call Russian President Vladi­mir Putin to congratulate him on an election widely believed to be stolen?

5. Alan Gross is still in the Cuba gulag. Was it a mistake to lessen sanctions without obtaining anything from the Cuban regime?

6. Where is the president’s long-term Medicare reform plan?

7. Why didn’t the president try to pass comprehensive immigration reform when he had Democratic majorities in the House and Senate?

8. President Obama agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts in December 2010 because the economy was too weak to sustain a major tax increase. The economy is growing at a slower rate now, so why shouldn’t they be extended again?

9. Should the president have embraced the Simpson-Bowles debt reduction plan?

10. If the sequestration cuts would be as “devastating” as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said, why did president sign the Budget Control Act or why didn’t he weigh in with the supercommittee?

As for Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) here are 10 queries, most of which haven’t been asked before:

1. If you and Mitt Romney are giving seniors a choice to remain in traditional Medicare, why wait 10 years to implement a premium-support plan?

2. President Obama had virtually no foreign policy experience, and now Mitt Romney is running without military or direct national security experience. Should that be a concern?

3. What changes in Simpson-Bowles would have been needed in order for you to have supported it?

4. Was it a mistake to vote for the Budget Control Act, which included the potential for defense sequestration cuts?

5. Was the auto bailout a success?

6. What parts of Dodd-Frank should be kept?

7. Should we end or condition student loan subsidies so as to stop fueling the runup in college tuition?

8. Should our policy be regime change in Iran?

9. Why wouldn’t Romney’s territoriality tax idea (i.e. allow companies to pay only the foreign tax on overseas income) encourage companies to move jobs out of the United States?

10. Since you didn’t want to run for president, why did you agree to run for VP, which requires you to step into the presidency if need be?